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This microbial census of ISS surfaces is a component of a larger project (Project MERCCURI,) which was done not just for the science but also for its outreach and education potential. Project MERCCURI (Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers on the ISS) is collaborative effort of UC Davis (microBEnet), Science Cheerleader, NanoRacks, Space Florida, and Scistarter.com. Project MERCCURI includes three components. Aim 1 involves collecting microbes (by swabbing surfaces) from sporting venues and other high-profile built-environment locations. This component included a concurrent outreach effort in which 2000 "Citizen Scientists" were asked to collect microbes from their cell phones and shoes using sterile swabs. These swabs were sent to the Earth Microbiome Project lab for microbial community analysis. Aim 2 is a bacterial growth assay, in which non-pathogenic microbes collected from the surfaces in Aim 1, "compete" against each other, both on the surface of the Earth (at UC Davis) and onboard the ISS. For Aim 3, the results of which are presented here, astronauts were asked to swab 15 surfaces onboard the ISS to collect microbes for DNA-sequenced-based identification, a service also provided by the Earth Microbiome Project.  The 15 surfaces onboard the ISS were chosen by the Project MERCCURI team in an effort to make them analogous to 1) the surfaces sampled with the "Wildlife of Our Homes" project, which asked citizen scientists to swab nine surfaces in their homes, and 2) the cell phone and shoe samples that were being collected via Project MERCCURI. The motivation for choosing the sites in this way was both to increase public engagement with the data, as well as to begin to compare the microbial ecology of our homes on Earth with our only home in space. Because the cell phone and shoe sequence data associated with this project are not available at this time, we will include those comparisons in a future publication. However, we have included comparisons to two other relevant citizen science projects: Belly Button Biodiversity and Armpit Life. These two projects were selected to represent the potential  human contribution to the microbial life on the ISS.